David Price's opponent, American heavyweight Tony Thompson, believes doping in sport should be legalised

American heavyweight Tony Thompson, who faces Britain's David Price in
Liverpool on Saturday, suggested Thursday that drug use in sport has become
so widespread that all sports bodies should legalise doping.

Thompson, 41, who lost to Wladimir Klitschko in his last fight last July, insists he does not even like to take painkillers such as Aspirin.

"I know this is going to be kind of controversial for people, I think they should just allow doping, period. Because to me it's like the gun law," Thompson told BBC Radio Five Live.

"Only the good guys are listening, so it leaves the good guys without the guns. So you just allow everybody... it's an issue of choice; I would never want to be doing anything to alter my body down the road anyway. We all have our suspicions."

"Sports is what it is - it's entertainment," he said. "It's like having too many special effects in a movie. You go to the movies to be entertained; you watch sports and you ask to be entertained and we want our athletes to be the biggest, the baddest they can be - regardless of how level the playing field is - and in the end we want our athletes to be heroes and to be great and to be bigger than life.

"All of the money that we're using to catch cheats and supplement your body in sports should be used for other things. This is sports. This is not insider training. This is not eliminating hunger in the world. It's just sports.

"And I think we put too much emphasis on what it is that athletes are doing. A lot of the time you've got to leave it up to athletes. It's a person's choice, such as abortion and other things we don't agree with."

He added that he would not consider taking the doping route himself.

"My son plays football and basketball and the last thing I want to do is inject him with anything that's going to alter his natural body rhythm. Same with myself - I don't even like to take Aspirin," he said.

But Thompson would leave it to others to reach their own decision.

"That's their choice," he said. "Some of the things we use to dope actually helps the body. If the athlete was allowed safe levels of most of this stuff it would not only enhance their careers it would enhance their life after sports."